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Coalition forms in War on Caps Lock

24 August 2006, Brussels, Stockholm. Old and new are joining forces in the war against Caps Lock. The newly-launched CAPSoff campaign, the subject of intense debate and comment on the Internet since it launched one week ago, joins forces with the veteran anticAPSLOCK campaign, which has campaigned against since 2001. The coalition against Caps Lock will fight for consumer choice in keyboard design.

anticAPSLOCK founder Linus McCabe says: "These are exciting times. Since the first happy day when I prised a useless Caps Lock key off my keyboard, I've campaigned for keyboard manufacturers to fix this bug. Certainly, there are some people who cherish the Caps Lock key. So, we don't mind seeing the key moved. But it's time to push for reform. Caps Lock squats a space that is much to valuable to waste like this."

CAPSoff founder Pieter Hintjens agrees: "of course we all have better things to do with our lives. But add up millions of small frustrations over decades, and you understand why Caps Lock is such a hot topic. People really have strong feelings about this key! CAPSoff is a grass-roots organisation. Everyone lends a hand, and together with the experience of anticAPSLOCK, we're going to fight for the removal of Caps Lock."

Not everyone agrees with the Caps Lock reform movement. Both CAPSoff and anticAPSLOCK have received large amounts of spam and hate mail from uppercase fanatics. Hintjens explains: "some people oppose any reform on principle. We've been insulted generously for attacking the status-quo. But we dropped the floppy disk, the serial port, the printer port, and other relics of the 1980s. Change is scary, but sometimes it's important. Apart from some niche applications, there is no valid use for Caps Lock today. For the majority of people, isn't it time we got keyboards where every key was useful?"